Bed bugs and chariots

I was awake at 4 am and finely decided that my night was over at 6am.  you simply don't feel like getting out of bed at 4am! these days I love seeing the skies turn from pitch black to grey to blue (if that's a good day).  I LOVE seeing daylight.  Nights are a nightmare, in pain, writhing for a comfy position, Which invariably is impossible.  daytime means people are around.  You don't feel so alone.

Now I have two beds...one ordinary, bog-standard double.  The other is a hospital bed in my spare room.  Unfortunately hospital bed came out of the ark.  Single, no bed sides (which I need to turn over and also bank pillows against).  The mattress is two inches thick...I ask you!  That's a BUG, a BIG BUG!  How can someone with severe spinal arthritis lie on a two inch rubber mattress where you feel all the motor mechanisms under your bum and back.  Occupational therapist came with a bed side three weeks ago but it didn't fit. so went away. I haven't seen her since and in the last few days she hasn't answered my phone calls.

Now for chariots,  wheelchairs.  Ann and I went to a fab wheelchair expo this week.  Fab wheelchairs...oh so fab..rolls royces rather than the reconstituted buckets the HSE have given us.  I ask you why do sick and disabled people have to suffer in a chariot more flintstone than modern?

Because we cannot afford the approx. 24k to buy two fab chariots, that's approx. 12k each, one for me one for twino.  and the HSE said they can't afford it either.  And no willing charity out there is up and running to provide any wheelchairs for us either! So the orange box on wheels is about as basic as we're going to get. 

We've started an appeal by the way, to get our own...not doing so well as so many in the age of austerity are struggling.   We also need a new van for transportation so the whole thing comes to 50k...an impossible task...


Irish Times August 20 2013   our fundraising account is 11281838  sort code 98-53-75  ulster bank, bray, co Wicklow. cheques payable to Ann Kennedy or Margaret Kennedy

All very much appreciated.

Continue...at the wheelchair expo...

Then I learned that there is a difference between 'indoor-outdoor chariot and outdoor-indoor chariot.  The former is predominantly built for outdoor terrain, but can be used indoor, the latter the other way round, made for indoor use largely. The HSE bucket I have is an INDOOR wheelchair (aka chariot) not even an indoor-outdoor. It's plain INDOOR!  Now why in the name of God would I be given an INDOOR wheelchair when I live on top of a mountain (well nearly) and need to go two miles to the nearest train station? They KNEW I needed to 'get out'. Well the logic is simple.

throw them anything!  What's in store?  Oh yes... Ok we'll give them that!  To heck with the 'assessment'.  As well as this I discovered my wheelchair has no suspension...designed to stop your body jolting over every rut in the road and here am I with severe spinal arthritis.  No wonder I landed in hospital a few weeks ago in the severest of agony.

furthermore my 'tilt facility' is not working on my bucket. that's that 'Lets lean back and rest abit as I wait 4 hours to see the doctor...or three hours on the train. Nor is there a head rest.  so even if I HAD a 'tilt facility' my head would fall off backwards! Not a pretty sight!

so bed bugs and chariots made/produced by the Irish HSE (health service) is designed to entirely make you worse off...thus requiring more medical attention, not less...and this they call 'saving money'.  AAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH you could scream in frustration!